


Rose and Crown

by sechoux



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, PWP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 17:14:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4068046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sechoux/pseuds/sechoux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyungsoo decides that there is a certain romance in silence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rose and Crown

**Author's Note:**

> First fic ever, and as unbetaed as can be.
> 
> Inspired by this ([song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rejizpNR20A)) and this ([prompt](https://twitter.com/exoaspoetry/status/603569215472181249))
> 
> Please leave your comments/advice and please be kind ♡

There’s something about the air in the bar that never fails to level Kyungsoo’s head. Thick must of acrid tobacco and cedar packed against an unyielding odour of sticky, tarry spirits. Eyes trained on an obscure spot of nothing, Kyungsoo’s lips traced the fresh glass rim of his second neat single malt whisky.  _There’s a certain romance to silence._  

 

“Don’t believe I’ve seen you in an ol’ gin mill like this before,” a sharp tenor cut through the dank air. A tall, lean silhouette in charcoal grey draped himself with a swagger on the edge of the counter, two feet away on his left.

 

 Kyungsoo remained hunched in his barstool, one hand tending to his drink, the other palm pressed on his left thigh. Eye contact unrequited, silence mingled with the stranger’s words between them. He wasn’t here for conversation.  

 

Distant strings and the lazy crooning of a jazz singer swelled in the background dust.

 

“You’re in a dark mood, aren’t you?” the stranger tried again, his tone laced with amusement; a twinkling in his eyes Kyungsoo fails to notice. 

 

A quick gesture to the bartender brings a firm nod, then a gin and tonic.

 

With a blink that looked suspiciously like an eye-roll, the stranger wasn’t sure _,_ Kyungsoo threw back the rest of his liquid bronze, glass falling onto the rosewood bar-top with a crystal thud. He tongues his cheek for a short instance.

 

“That’s because I don’t usually deal with greasers like you.” Kyungsoo decided, crisp and final, his earthy voice dripping languidly from his plump kisser.

 

“You haven’t spared me a glance once, and yet you already have me pegged, huh?” The blonde laughed and tousled his locks loosely, half in frustration, half in intrigue. Then, giving his highball a swirl and a swallow, he reached over to tap the other’s empty glass.

 

“Joe, another one for my new pal, shall we? Name’s Jongin, by the way.”

 

Kyungsoo shot him a glare that was clearly both of annoyance and warning, but Jongin’d be damned if he missed how Kyungsoo’s jaw eased, even the slightest.

 

“What’s a man like yourself doing here all alone, anyway?” Jongin probes, turning to lean against the bar-top, propped up by slack elbows. He scanned the foggy bar – the couple of emerald velvet booths empty, save for one with a few stout greying men tickling the chin of a dark, and obviously underaged, beauty, guffawing obscenely. “There ain’t a skirt to chase in here.”

 

Silence ebbed tauntingly between them.

 

“Left the ball and chain at home then, eh?”

 

“You writing a book or something?” Kyungsoo snaps, and finally turns to burn a gaze into Jongin. His left hand leaves his thigh to grasp at his new glass with bare, unadorned fingers. Intentionally or not, Jongin can’t tell, but it’s a signal he’ll take presumptuously anyway.

 

“Whaddaya say we get out of this ol’ joint?”

 

“And what are you suggesting?” Kyungsoo accused, a dark eyebrow raised. It’s an old line he’s used too many times on broads in the past to know the offer it carries in its weight. But then again, _old_  and the _past_ are words that are as abandoning as they get.

 

“Well… Would you rather I suggest a trip to the ice cream parlour?” asked a bemused Jongin.

 

Kyungsoo grunted, unimpressed. The still silence between them dense and heaving from an unanswered question.

 

“I don’t think it’s quite exactly… proper,” his voice barely trailing off before the last word, his hand nearly fighting its way up to button his single-breasted jacket.

 

“To hell with proper.” Jongin stood up, and angled closer into the right of the older man.

 

“ _We were all born fools, one way or the other,_ ” he drawls into the shell of Kyungsoo’s ear, honey warm breath stirring the fine hairs on his nape like static, curling its way down his spine. In that moment, Kyungsoo decides conviction can come in a flash, not half a decade. It can come in one breath, not a string of mantras he repeats to himself, back and forth, back and forth.

 

 

“Hey! Why don’t you two fuckin’ nancies smoke each other’s dicks someplace else, eh?”

 

Jongin froze. Stiffened. Then, chest staggering in a breath. Turning to face the direction of that cheap scratch of a voice, Jongin cocks his head to the side, looks up beneath his lashes and smirks hesitantly. A learned retaliation Kyungsoo instinctively recognises.

 

He follows Jongin’s gaze. A sympathetic glance from the young girl.

 

Not a second later, Kyungsoo throws a few crumpled bills on the table and drags them out.

 

 

 

“I woulda fuckin’ blown his brains out,” seethed Jongin. The skin on his wrist by which the older man was gripping, torrid.

 

“Doesn’t change a thing, does it?” Kyungsoo uttered, pulling him into an alley five blocks down, losing themselves from glances and whispers.

 

 

It was only in the quiet of the damp dark alley that Kyungsoo realises his tight grip on Jongin. He hastily drops it with a somewhat murmured apology, but suddenly a thicker hand grasps his hand back up, not a second too late.

 

“They’re fools, too. You know that, right?” Jongin’s breath softer, gentler, as he closes into Kyungsoo’s smaller frame, eyes glazed with a murky plea that the latter realises isn’t a rhetorical question, more so a cry for validation.

 

Distant street lamps throw a dim gold blanket over them.

 

Melancholic gaze, liquid bronze. Liquid bronze swirling in his head.

 

Silence was a slow dance between them.

 

And in that moment, Kyungsoo decides, leaning in to the honey warmth of the other’s breath. Thick must of tobacco and alcohol clinging to the air. Lingering.

 

Two solitary shadows melting into each other.


End file.
